Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-03-31
The DEMOCRATIC NORTHWEST THURSDAY MARCH 81, 1881

the work Of firing years Yet il was its ex-
ceeding great reward. The Linwood school
children came to look on life from a loftier
plane than their ancestors had done. A stran-
ger coming among them after they became
men and women would have catalogued
among their virtues and graces broad intel
hgence, delicate sense Of honor, an case and
polish OF manner socially, a kindliness that in
some wise neared them TO the ideal commu-
nifty
Thus bravely Shirley wrought. She was
forced to the deferment Of her own brightest,
sweetest hopes. She toiled year by year at a
labor that was hateful TO her. Yet, working
through the children committed TO her care,
it was her happy privilege to quicken Lin
wood into higher, finer life Was not that
somethingl 1t was much.
Outside Of the blessed home-life in the stone
house, Shirley had known little of the world
socially. When she became the village school
mistress, the faithful Mis- Simpkins had ad-
vised her that she must make herself acquain-
ted with the families of her pupils. That was
to gain the general good will The good dame
gave the young teacher much advice. Mis-
Simpkins was always ready to give away any
thing that cost nothing.
otbCANCu oOuO VI buc uelRuDOTlOOQ
festivities. They grated OH her painfully.
She shranh apart from the company. The
women's clack, the harsh guffaw of the men,
the idiotic snickering of the older girls, only
repeled her.
In the conversation Of the Linwood
women, the most petty incident, the most
contemplate fault or mistake of those who
were absent were taken up and discussed
with an intensity and made as much of it as
if the fate of kingdom had hung on them.
Shirley sat in silence. She listened and
meditated. The thought of her poem was
seldom long absent from her mind. 1t ran
like an undermotive through her every day
deeds-the only bright theme in her life then
Above all, the dream of kingly woman
haunted her imagination still. She had said
tho people in her grand epic that was to be
should be women. She could create the
kingly woman from the vision in her imagi-
nation, but she had thought the minor char
acters were to come from life. Were all the
women in the world like these in Linwoodl
Then whence were the women in her poem to
come?
Another thought chased this one. Her girl
pupils-would they be like that, too, when
they came to be women9
"They shall not" said Shirley.
She went no more to the Linwood Sewing
society. But from that day she was drawn
nearer to her girls, to work more earnestly
with them She answered now to them the
question she had asked her father in child
hood, and the answer was this
"A girl has as much sense as boy if she
will make use of it"
She impressed ON them intensely that their
intellectual powers were given them for use,
and they would be guilty Of nothing less
than sin if they neglected them.
"You learn your lessons as well as the
boys do" she told the larger girls "Why
should you get stupid later! Don't let me
hear of it,"
With sweet insistcnce she protested from
day to day that they should not allow their
mental horizon to narrow till it inclosed only
ribbons and gossip. They must not follow
the millions of their kind, who live and
make no more impression on their world than
gnats upon an elephant. When they died it
was recorded on their tombstones that they
were the wife of Smith. That was all
Shirley read and studied with her girls.
She interested them permanently in science,
in literature and in the large affairs of life
Cannot genius do all things? Yet with all
this work, this intense concentration of ener-
gies elsewhere, the poem had again to be
put off. @
SO more years moved on.
And still nc news Of the Inaster.
TO ar coNTTNuRn